


God's Gonna Trouble The Water

by leiascully



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Holy Water, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: If he were being perfectly honest, Aziraphale didn't entirely like holy water.





	God's Gonna Trouble The Water

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: it's been 84(ish) years since Crowley asked for holy water  
> A/N: Title from the spiritual "Wade In The Water". This is more of a vignette than anything else.  
> Disclaimer: No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

If he were being perfectly honest, Aziraphale didn't entirely like holy water. Certainly the idea that it could wash a body free of sin was lovely, except that after thousands of years on the Earth, Aziraphale had seen rather a number of humans get injured, and seen their wounds washed out with whiskey or salt water or antiseptic as they screamed. He suspected that holy water would, for certain individuals, be just as painful as the bite of alcohol in a gash. He'd always understood sin as a sort of wound to the soul, a metaphysical sepsis. A malady that might be cured. And certainly holy water was the prescription for that, or one of them. He'd always preferred good works, but he could see the appeal of a more expedient and incontrovertible solution. 

To be washed clean, to emerge pure and shining: that was marvelous, of course. Redemption in a carafe. One might be anointed, baptised, blessed with holy water. One might be brought back into the fold, damply divine. If the cure stung a bit, surely that was still preferable to whatever torments one might suffer in hell, but he didn't enjoy seeing the humans suffer. Of all the parts of the ineffable plan, that seemed the most ineffable. But at least, in the end, they would be saved, even if the holy water burned, which generally, it didn't seem to. Aziraphale wasn't entirely convinced that the potency of the stuff in some of the fonts he'd seen was up to snuff, but how much concentrated grace did a baby really need? Surely original sin was an easy stain to remove. They did cry, he'd noticed, so perhaps there was some effect. 

And yet. What holy water, the real thing, would do to Crowley - whatever demonic snarl meant the opposite of a miracle, that's what would happen to Crowley. Worse than discorporation or damnation. Annihilation. Crowley had fallen already, or - what was the charming phrase he used, sauntered vaguely downward - and this would be worse. Worse than Crowley's wings burning away, worse than his transmogrification into a serpent. Worse than his Goodness souring into sin. The pain would be incomparable. Aziraphale shuddered to think of that teasing voice screaming itself hoarse. He had seen what holy water could do once or twice, long ago, in the war. His fellow angels were ruthless in their conviction that Good was good and Evil must be rooted out. Aziraphale had seen demons dissolve, evaporated into a haze by a splash of holy water. He had seen angels burn too, but that was what he expected of Their Side, frankly. Of course Hell would use those kind of tactics. 

He knew very well that being Good didn't always mean being kind or merciful, but sometimes he wished it did. Then again, kindness and mercy didn't always line up with Good either. Technically, he supposed, he had killed people before, releasing them from life when there was no hope of recovery. That was merciful, but it wasn't entirely Good. It couldn't be, when he'd seen Crowley do the same thing. Crowley was, declaratively and demonstrably, not Good. He'd told Aziraphale as much a hundred times: said it, snarled it, slurred it, shouted it. 

Crowley wanted holy water and oh, just the idea of it made Aziraphale's heart stutter in his chest, an unexpected malfunction of the body he'd been issued and worn for thousands of years with no arrhythmia. He couldn't bear it. Those clever hands, their nimble fingers curled in pain as Crowley was worn away into nothingness forever, beyond any salvation. Those golden eyes creased with agony instead of laughter. That lean pale form that Aziraphale had always been able to pick out in a crowd (it was the way Crowley slouched as he walked, the tilt of his hips and shoulders) doubled over, twisted in on itself, and then gone.

It struck him, as he pondered the vehemence of his refusal, that he loved Crowley, and the thought crystallized like ice, restructuring the gross material of his consciousness. Of course he Loved Crowley - he Loved everyone, it was his nature - but this miniscule-l love, this personal unsanctioned love, was new, or newly realized. He didn't want to lose Crowley. He loved him. 

(If, oh, if Aziraphale were to consider being forthright with himself, there was more to it than that. There was history, and there were memories, and there were, although he was loathe to admit it, sins. He had virtues - most of them, most of the time - but somewhere inside him, apple seeds or mustard seeds, were sins. He'd taken inventory of them over the years. The decades that Crowley were asleep were particularly dull. Aziraphale ran out of distractions eventually and devoted a few evenings to psychology.

Every angel had at least a touch of Wrath inside them - it was part of the design. They were warriors for Her cause, after all, even those of them that manage to fumble away their God-given weapons. Another merciful act that may have missed the mark on Good, but it was six thousand years ago and surely he'd made up for it since. Gluttony was the one he'd admit. The humans just made such tasty little treats. Pride, perhaps, in certain lights. He did take a certain interest in his work and his appearance. Greed might have accounted for the accumulated contents of his bookshop; more than one potential patron had accused him of it when he wouldn't part with one work or another. He didn't suffer particularly from Envy or Sloth, most of the time, and that wrapped up all of them except. Except. There was Lust left, wasn't there, uncoiling itself with sinuous grace. 

And there was Crowley, the very personification of temptation, as serpentine as Lust itself. Aziraphale didn't sleep often, but he whiled away the occasional weekend or fortnight or decade dreaming as he went around keeping the world tidy. He'd dreamed of Crowley, of sliding dark fabric over pale skin, of brushing back that ruddy hair, of sampling all the delights that Crowley has to offer. And so Lust bled into Gluttony, because he couldn't imagine getting enough, and Aziraphale imagined he could be tempted into Sloth as well, if he had a bed to wallow in of a Sunday morning, and someone to wallow with. It was a day of rest, after all. 

But he tried not to consider these things. Psychology was rather a soft discipline, he'd found. It hadn't helped him carry out many of Heaven's missions. Besides, Crowley used it to convince the humans to tempt themselves, so perhaps best to avoid it altogether.)

If Aziraphale were to give Crowley what he desired, that is to say, a pint or two of holy water, at some point or another, inevitably, Crowley would use it for whatever unholy purposes he was contemplating. Aziraphale shied away from the thought. He was aware that Crowley was not entirely in step with the rest of Hell, per se. He was aware that there were consequences for these sorts of things, from time to time (the Fallen sprang to mind). It was possible that Crowley wanted the holy water as a weapon, but the potential for disaster was immense. If there was any kind of splash at all, if Crowley were caught in a nimbus of spray, he would be gone without warning, and the world would be empty, and six thousand years of memories couldn't console Aziraphale. Six thousand years of never managing to tell Crowley that Crowley had become dearer to him than anything else in the universe. Six thousand years of giving in to most of the garden of earthly delights, but not the temptation right in front of him. Six thousand years remembering the fond look Crowley had given him when he was still Crawley, sheltering under the broad white span of Aziraphale's wing as the rain washed over them. Love, as it turned out, was ineffable, even for a being made to Love.

Oh, no, holy water was a bridge too far. Aziraphale held sin close in his heart, Greed and Lust and all the rest of it, all wrapped around a wry and indulgent smile. He didn't dare give Crowley the means of his own destruction, not when it would destroy Aziraphale as well.

And yet Crowley had done so much for him. Hamlet. Saving him from the guillotine and that nasty little executioner. Spiriting away the last unicorn when he thought Aziraphale wasn't looking. Aziraphale owed Crowley a favor, and all Crowley had really ever asked for (aside from things like "have another date, angel" or "try this wine, angel" and the occasional negotiation for the Arrangement, usually immediately repaid double or triple) was holy water. 

Aziraphale couldn't say no. He'd gone years without speaking to Crowley, but that hardly mattered. They were creatures of habit, however ethereal or occult. Aziraphale had his bookshop and Crowley had his flat, an interesting take on Brutalism shoehorned into a building too small and entirely the wrong era for it. If he happened to be out, all Aziraphale had to do was look for the Bentley. Crowley always found him, when Aziraphale needed him.

He was, as the saying went, damned if he didn't and damned if he did. He put the holy water in a vacuum flask, the kind a child might keep soup in. There couldn't be anything harmful in a flask like that, surely. He consoled himself with the fact that the flask sealed really very well, and the tartan pattern was soothing. He filled it, capped it, wiped it down, let it dry, wiped it down with alcohol, and dried it again. There were no protocols for disinfecting holy water, as far as he knew. He'd done the best he could. He had to trust Crowley. Never speaking again was certainly preferable to Crowley's potential non-existence, but it wasn't enough anymore. If the price of Crowley's company was a suicide pill, so be it. Crowley would never love him, of course, it being against his nature, but they could continue the Arrangement. It wasn't as if Aziraphale didn't know anything about a devotion that only went one way. He'd been an expert in unrequited Love since Creation. 

Faced with a Crowley-less eternity, Aziraphale would walk into the nearest pillar of hellfire and fade back into the universe, hoping whatever stuff he was made of would find whatever was left of Crowley. But there was certainly no way to tell Crowley that. His response would be something like, "Well, angel, I'm flattered" in that drawl that held just a little too much sympathy and implied that he, Aziraphale, was actually a bit of a sad bastard, and that he, Crowley, was much too sophisticated to spend any more of his time associating with someone so pathetically devoted to a cause that had clearly taken a turn somewhere around the time of the flood, to say nothing of the crucifixion. 

Perhaps he could suggest a favor in return. A picnic, or dinner at the Ritz. Something typical, the significance of which he could savor alone as he and Crowley toasted. A memory to last the rest of eternity, just in case.

He picked up the flask. It sloshed gently in his hands, not entirely full. It was the purest thing he'd ever held, panacea and poison in one.

"Well," he said to himself in a voice that hardly trembled, and he put the flask in his pocket and left the shop to find his counterpart.


End file.
